Vincent Brown directed six killings in the East African country during the 1994 massacres, prosecutors have alleged<\/p>\n
A former Rwandan health official has been charged by British prosecutors over his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in his home country, bringing the first UK charges linked to the massacre.
\nVincent Brown, formerly known as Vincent Bajinya, appeared in a London court on Tuesday. He faces one charge of conduct ancillary to genocide and six of conduct ancillary to murder as a crime against humanity. Prosecutors allege Brown, 65, led a group to a house in Kigali\u2019s Rugenge district on April 8 and ordered three people shot. They say he subsequently ordered the killing of a woman and her infant son, and directed a group that stoned a taxi driver to death. Brown denies involvement.
\n\u201cDr. Brown\u2026 is alleged to have directed and incited acts of murder and genocide carried out by others,\u201d chief crown prosecutor Frank Ferguson said.
\nMore than 800,000 people, predominantly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed in roughly 100 days after the genocide began on April 7, 1994. The UN tribunal established afterward indicted 93 people.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Germany arrests Rwanda genocide suspect<\/p>\n
Brown, a physician, headed the family health department at Rwanda\u2019s National Office of Population when the genocide began. He later moved to Britain as an asylum seeker and took the name Vincent Brown after gaining British citizenship in 2004. Rwanda sought his extradition, but UK courts refused over concerns that he would not receive a fair trial there. The British investigation began in 2019 following a request from Kigali. Brown, who denies involvement, is due back in court on October 9 after being released on \u00a325,000 ($33,400) bail. His lawyer, Sam Blom-Cooper, described the killings as \u201cappalling crimes\u201d and said Brown welcomed the charges as an opportunity to clear his name, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
\u2018They stopped seeing us as human beings\u2019: How Europe provoked a savage modern genocide in the heart of Africa<\/p>\n
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo welcomed the UK charges as a \u201clong overdue\u201d step toward accountability and urged Britain to speed up its remaining cases, local daily New Times reported. President Paul Kagame has previously accused the international community of failing to stop the killings, saying it failed Rwanda \u201cwhether from contempt or cowardice.\u201d
\nThe UK case follows prosecutions of suspects in other countries. In 2024, a French court upheld former Rwandan gendarme Philippe Hategekimana\u2019s life sentence for organizing roadblocks and taking part in massacres around Nyanza. A Belgian court sentenced former militia leader Seraphin Twahirwa to life in 2023 for directing killings in Kigali and raping Tutsi women. Germany arrested another suspect, identified as Innocent S., in July on suspicion of complicity in genocide and involvement in 25 murders.
\nRwandan businessman Felicien Kabuga, accused of financing militias and using his radio station to incite attacks on Tutsis, died in UN tribunal custody in May before his trial reached a verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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